


Ineffectual Methods

by cat_77



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Rape Aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were captured and interrogated by those souped up on a mock Super Soldier serum.  The methods were ineffective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ineffectual Methods

**Author's Note:**

> For the "rape/non-con" square at hc_bingo. Please heed the warnings.
> 
> * * *

They didn't talk about it through mutual, unspoken, agreement. They only mention how she missed her check in, how he went in to recover her, how they both escaped and how a retrieval team would be needed.

He had waited the required time, and then he waited some more. She had been overdue for check-in by three hours, and he had last heard from her nearly five before. She said she had an in and was going to take it. She said nothing about exit strategy but, then again, she rarely did. Newer agents were followed far closer, but she was a seasoned veteran and, had it been anyone but him on watch, she would have been left for a day or possibly two before anyone was concerned.

He was glad it was him.

Something about her tone, the slightest hint of hesitance, had his hackles up. Mix that with the purpose of the mission itself and with the reports she had provided of the major players thus far, and he might have been a little trigger happy, might have jumped the gun, might have come just in time.

The game was drugs. Not just any drugs, of course, because they could have and would have assigned something like that to someone far lower on the food chain. No, these drugs were experimental and were definitely not social in nature. These drugs did not get the taker high, give them a buzz, or bliss them out. These drugs mimicked the Super Soldier serum, and the evidence they had prior to the mission hinted they were pretty damned successful.

Natasha was to play the socialite, to flirt her way inside the mansion known for its wild parties, to slip away and do recon, and to report back her findings. Clint was to follow if needed as her wayward boyfriend, possibly also looking for a score and possibly also providing extra muscle should there be more fight than flight to their escape.

But then Natasha didn't report in.

Natasha, who would ditch handlers who she thought were incompetent only to swagger back days or weeks or, in one notable instance, months later with the full intel as soon as someone she trusted was reassigned. Natasha, who would always find a way to send Clint a message that she was okay, that she might drop off the grid for a bit, but that she was still viable and vital. Natasha, his partner for years, the one he trusted to either watch his back or kick his ass as needed. Natasha, who went radio silent with not even flash of a mirror in a window to tell him she was still doing fine. That Natasha, his Natasha, did not report in.

So he donned his sport coat and a pair of shoes Stark would have been proud of, bow left behind as it would be more than a little conspicuous, and sauntered in as if he had every right to be there. It turned out that guys hopped up on drugs with an unmentioned side effect that tossed pesky things like morality and inhibitions to the side took offense to that. It turned out that he really could not take on three guys with the strength of Steve, and the fourth and fifth were just ridiculously overkill.

The interrogation that followed was far more brute force than finesse, and he was left handcuffed to a bar near the floor, body aching and head pounding. A dislocated thumb was enough to get him free, or at least free enough to do what he needed to do. He took a moment to breathe, to put himself to rights and to listen for his caretakers to return, before he shuffled-crawled the short distance to the other side of the room.

Natasha had been given a nicer arrangement than he, but not by much. She was bound to an exam bed of professional medical quality, the bed itself bolted to the cement floor of the basement they had been brought to. Their captors only used the buckled medical restraints, nothing more severe, and yet she was still there, desperately still, when he approached.

She didn't turn her head towards him even though the Nat he knew would have escaped long before his cuffs reverberated against the metal. It wasn't until he was hovered above her, waving a hand in front of her face, that she blinked eyes red from dehydration and something more, and offered a strangled, "Barton?"

He didn't look at her, didn't want to see anything past her face with its smeared makeup and bruised lips. "What did they give you?" he asked before he would even reach for the restraints. The mock serum crossed their radar due to the accompanying irrational behaviors as well as increased strength - a not so good combination for an already trained assassin. He kind of doubted they had given that to her though as she normally would have been freed by now under her own power, let alone a chemical boost. Their words though, the ones they shared when they thought he was unconscious, haunted him. They had called her a candidate, debated if what they gave her would interfere or assist the process, decided for round one to wear off before they potentially moved on to round two.

"P-Paralytic," she managed. Her head tilted an inch to the left, jerky and spastic. He saw the needle marks by her jugular, dwarfed by the purpling handprint at her throat. Her features twitched, likely the closest she could get to a full blown scrunch of frustration. "Starting to wear off," she told him, and accompanied the declaration with a minuscule flex of her index finger and thumb.

It was good enough for him but, then again, she could have been given the actual serum and he would have still reached for the buckles, sprung the trap knowing he'd at least have an answer as to how much backup was going to be needed to take the place down.

Her toes curled and she managed a loose fist by the time he freed her, her adrenaline and force of will overpowering the chemicals that raced through her veins. He helped her to her side, checked her back for damage and hidden lines and found nothing that should be permanent. "They tried the easy way, but I was never one for easy," she explained, words coming slightly less breathy already, sounding like she had only been on a three day bender of a mission instead of five. She flopped back when he let go, and glared at him for the less than graceful release. "They think I'm out, wanted another go when I woke up," she warned. 

He didn't want to think about that, didn't need that distraction. He scoured the room for what he needed, found a blanket that he knew she would refuse, gauze that would be thrown in his face if she was able. He turned at a noise and found her trying to push herself upright. He rolled his eyes at her stubbornness before he dragged her into a sitting position and propped her up at his side. "We need to get out of here," he said unnecessarily. Then, as fair warning, "That means I'm going to need to carry you."

She made a face that was almost her own, and ordered, "Get me my dress so I can pretend to have some dignity."

He found the cloth on the floor, stained and torn, but with enough clasps to at least hold it in place. He slid it on, her skin that much paler against the black, the damage that much more stark. She didn't ask for anything as frivolous as shoes, and he didn't offer, though he did grab his own discarded coat and forced her uncooperative arms into that as well.

She leaned against him for a moment, head on his shoulder and breathing deep, body far too lax and fumbling. It took him a sadly long moment to figure out what she was trying for his backup weapon, the one they took with his primary hours ago. She let her arms fall to her side in frustration, but even he knew it had only been wishful thinking to begin with. "We get into it, try to remember not to toss me at the bad guys," she teased, grin almost macabre where it was framed by her tangles.

"But you're my favorite weapon," he shot back, his heart really not into it but knowing it was simply rote at this point. Like he was going to let her go. Like he hadn't walked straight into a fucking armed compound just to find her.

He hauled her up into a fireman's carry, worried about her shallow breathing even as he was tempted to smile at the muffled curses in varying languages. There was no smiling though, not now, not when there was blood was slick on his hands.

He darted along the corridors, trying both to avoid what he remembered of the earlier patrols and the random wanderings of the mansion's residents. He was almost successful, and only had to put Nat down once to put another man - thankfully not one who had taken the serum - into a sleeper hold before they were able to escape to car he had hidden at the edge of the property.

Natasha could almost walk by the time he got them to the safe house, ignoring their hotel altogether. He still mostly carried her anyway, mentally arguing that she was still barefoot and that it was in no way tied to his own need to touch, to know she was there, to know she was alive and breathing.

He placed her on the couch even though she looked as though she could sleep for a week, and pulled up the secured satellite connection to SHIELD headquarters. They dutifully reported their findings, how this version of the serum required routine injections to maintain the levels, how it seemed to have a side effect of keying off the more baser of emotions and responses, how the serum was not the only drug to be had.

Agent Hill saw through at least some of the bullshit and demanded to know Natasha's true status. Clint betrayed her the way they both knew he would, and tattled on the paralytic, though kept the rest of her state of being private for now. Hill ordered them both to report to Medical once able for full bloodwork to ensure the drug was out of her system and had no lasting side effects as well as to verify Clint himself hadn't been given anything without his knowledge. She then took in the split lip and the blackened wrists when Natasha pushed her hair out of her eyes, and ordered them both to stay at the safe house until transport came for them. Said transport would, of course, be delayed until after compound was raided.

"Take 'em down?" Clint requested, just a hint of his true anger escaping.

Hill barely raised an eyebrow before she replied, "That's the intention, Agent Barton."

She signed off and Clint flopped back against the couch, tried not to take it personally when Natasha flinched in the most minuscule of ways at the jostling. He turned to ask what she needed, but found she was already struggling to her feet, using the furniture for far more support than he knew she was willing to admit. His hands flexed to catch her if needed, and he earned a glare for his efforts. "I'm going to go wash up," she told him. It was not a suggestion nor open for debate, even he knew that.

"Shout if you need me," he replied, going for nonchalant and failing by a mile.

She tensed for a second, and then shuffled-lurched towards the small bathroom. It took all of his willpower not to follow. 

Instead, he busied himself with finding food and hanging a robe on the handle of the locked door she had disappeared behind and not closing his eyes for more than a second for fear that that he would see the marks again, the thumbprints on the curve of her hips, the scrapes along her ribcage, the blood smeared along her thighs.

He picked the lock of the remaining cuff and used a hand towel and the the water from the kitchen sink to scrub the worst of the dried muck off his wrist, less than secretly longing for a hot shower of his own, less than secretly keeping track of just how long Tasha had been in there all ready. She was not known to dawdle, especially not with an unknown timeline at stake, and more than once he hovered outside the door, hand raised to knock, only to promise himself he'd wait five more minutes, yet again.

The five had turned to a hell of a lot more than five by the time she slipped out. She left the locked bathroom for a locked bedroom, and he got the message: she wanted her space and he was to leave her the fuck alone.

He bathed in the lukewarm water and bandaged what he could of his own wounds and refused to take pain killers even though the safe house should be just that - safe. Until their transport came, until the mansion was in pieces and its residents locked away, he didn't want to take the chance that his reactions would be slowed, that he couldn't get to a weapon in time, that he would fail again.

The house came complete with closets full of clothing of various types and sizes, as was standard, but he chose simple cargo pants and a t-shirt, pulled on socks and boots even though he was technically on stand down for the immediate future. He chose the second of the three bedrooms for himself, food forgotten as unwanted on the kitchen counter, and laid down atop the bed to stare at the ceiling and avoid any semblance of sleep.

It was hours later when the near silent beep of an alarm sounded, the sun cutting through the slats of the blinds and the reinforced glass of the windows. The sound was a safeguard that meant someone had attempted access to the house and did not immediately pass the combination of biometric screens and passcodes. It did not always warrant an emergency as more than a single tired agent mistyped in their rush for safety, but considering the night before, and that he had heard nothing from Hill stating any agent was on his or her way, it was enough to put him on alert.

He slipped from bed, weapon at his side, and crouched in the doorway to the hallway, not surprised in the least to find Natasha doing the same. She was even dressed similar, substituting a thermal shirt for his t-shirt, though her stocking-covered feet were near soundless as she advanced towards the entryway. He noticed the slight jerk to her movements, even still, and suspected residual stiffness or simply pain from what she had gone through. He was smart enough not to question it though, not when it looked as though their guest had figured out a way to gain access after all.

He corrected that to guests when he heard at least two distinct voices. One stated he didn't think it was a good idea, and the other called out, "Honey, I'm h-"

The end of the declaration was cut short as Stark was shoved up against the wall, Natasha's arm at his throat and full weight of her anger pinning him in place. She leveled her weapon at Rogers, who was smart enough to remain in the doorway, hands up and out in as unthreatening way as possible.

Clint flipped the safety back on and revealed himself, knowing that if those two were there, there were at least two more behind them. "You broke into a safe house?" he asked incredulously.

"To be fair, I hacked in and then the door just opened for me," Tony corrected, semantics always mattering most with him, at least when he wanted them to.

His usual cavalier attitude did identify him as truly him though, so Natasha grunted her frustration and let him go, slamming him against the wall just a little bit more before she did so. Tony being Tony, he simply straightened his tie, picked up the briefcase he had dropped, and offered an enthusiastic, "Hi, guys!"

Nat looked like she was fighting the urge to sneer at him as she turned and stomped over to sit atop the overstuffed chair in the living room. Clint knew he wasn't the only one who caught the slight hitch in her step with the action, body losing its grace and giving into exhaustion as the potential emergency passed. He shook his head at Steve's raised eyebrow of a question, a less than subtle hint to let the matter go, at least for now.

Stark sauntered in and took the chair opposite of her, but Steve stayed in the doorway, eyes on the gun Clint still held in his hand, and asked, "May we come in?"

Clint tucked the thing into his waistband and shrugged with as much nonchalance as he could managed given his aching muscles, and replied, "Well, you did go through all the trouble breaking in, so why not?"

Steve lowered his hands and stepped across the threshold to reveal, as expected, a waiting Bruce and Thor. Bruce walked in behind him and said, "To be fair, that was entirely Tony's fault."

"It usually is," Steve agreed before Clint had the chance to.

Thor paused in the entryway, his massive size dwarfing the place and the door clicking shut behind him, to ask, "How is this house safe, if it so easily granted us entry?"

Clint wandered over to the kitchen counter, careful to keep his back straight and hobbling to a minimum with the multiple sets of eyes upon him, and leaned up against it to face the living room and its new occupants. "It's safe from all but genius computer hackers," he non-explained.

Stark nodded but amended that to, "Genius computer hackers who pretty much designed the original code and therefore made the impenetrable penetrable."

"If you're so genius, how did you set off the silent alarm?" Natasha challenged, a false hint of her usual amusement to her tone.

Tony offered a little wince at that and said, "Nobody's perfect? Well, that, and I'm pretty sure SHIELD tweaked the thing before they let it go live."

"Speaking of SHIELD, we should probably warn them that we have guests," Clint sighed. Hill would be ever so pleased, especially when she figured out who was responsible for it. 

"Yeah, you do that. And then we can talk about how you two found yourself with a cadre of Super Soldiers and no backup and we didn't even know about the mission until we were notified that there was an 'incident,'" Tony challenged. "She called it minor but, seriously Barton, you look like you let them use you as a punching bag. Is that minor in SHIELD terms? Because it sure as hell isn't in mine."

It took his many years of training not to flinch at the words, not to get lost in the memories of just what happened in that little basement room and what had the potential to happen had he not gotten them both the hell out of there. "Something like that," he muttered instead, hoping Steve or Bruce would pick up on the subtle undertones of the need to drop the subject if Tony himself did not.

He did though, and then went on to ramble about now Hill probably knew they were there anyway as she did absolutely nothing to stop the hack and she even bothered to call them herself and he would call her right then and there if need be to prove her agents hadn't fallen down on the job. He reached to do just that, and Clint pushed it all off to the background as Bruce had walked over to him, left him his space, but stayed close enough to whisper an offer of, "Did you want me to check you out? I'm not technically a medical doctor, but I've done my share of healing, enough to know how to wrap that thumb for you or bandage whatever you did to your ribs you don't want us to know about."

Clint should have known this was coming. Everyone always underestimated the quiet doctor when he was just as pervasive as the rest of them. It would be a losing battle to stall, Banner would just wait and watch with knowing eyes, and at least this way he could have a little more control over just what those eyes saw. He might also be able to get out of a full physical and only need to submit to the bloodwork if Bruce reported that he had already treated him as it had worked in the past so there was no reason to believe it wouldn't this time.

He agreed and grabbed the sizable first aid kit from the closet, hiding behind the door of his room because he might be able to keep a few things from Bruce, but it was doubtful he could from a roomful of people used to ditching out at least as much as he did himself and knew every obfuscation and tell he might possibly use and may even be able to fake them better than himself. So he let himself be scrubbed and dabbed with iodine and bandaged, or at least part of him, and dutifully lied about any injury Bruce couldn't see or couldn't guess at. He accepted the painkillers, but refused to take them until the mission status was confirmed, which earned him both a glare and long suffering sigh.

Natasha was next, and she ducked into her room as well, probably for the same damn reasons. He doubted they truly fooled anyone, but at least it looked like they were making a passable effort at complying, so the others would let it go for now. SHIELD would get their bloodwork and a neat little form signed off on that stated they were good little agents, and they would get their privacy and it worked well for all of them or at least that's what they told themselves and that was all that mattered.

He stepped back out to the living room to find Stark wrapping up a chat with Director Fury, which meant he had pissed off Hill enough to work his way up the food chain. He didn't listen in, but caught snatches of it anyway, most of it bitching that the team should have been in the know from the beginning and then Steve's over-earnest puppy dog routine talking them into having a go at the recently emptied compound the following morning. Thor was poking at the food he had left out the night before and making unhappy faces, so it came as a surprise to absolutely no one that they had to explain why one could not order takeout to be delivered to a safe house.

Steve looked at the abandoned snacks and then at Clint and saw right through him and knew pretty much instantly that neither of his teammates had eaten upon their escape. He opened cupboards and took out pans and Clint let him be, knowing the whole feeding them now was to make up for not being there earlier and was simply Cap's way of dealing with a situation for which he had no control. Thor was always all about the food, so he jumped in and opened cans as directed, with Bruce joining them both after he wrapped up with Nat and after giving Clint a pointed look that meant he had figured out he was lying about something, likely an injury. Since he hadn't dragged him back to check him out again or turned any alarming hue more commonly found in the plant kingdom, he figured he was going to let it slide, at least for now.

While they busied themselves with that, he busied himself with sitting on the couch and facing the chair Stark had claimed earlier to confirm the plan for the following day. Natasha settled herself in her own previously abandoned chair and listened in as well, face a mask when asked if either of them were up for a return or if they wanted to stay behind and rest and heal or some such thing. Clint replied on both of their behalves and, with a pointed look leveled in Stark's direction, simply said, "We're going."

Stark didn't look surprised by the declaration, but he also didn't exactly look pleased. Clint had seen a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror and knew he looked like shit - black eye, swollen jaw, wrists ringed with red where they peeked out beneath his half-assed bandaging job before Bruce cleaned and rewrapped them - so he didn't exactly blame him for opinions he himself would have had if it have been any other member of their group. Natasha and he were trained agents though. True, they were not currently in prime condition, but both had experienced far worse in the past and handled situations far more dire than wandering an empty mansion with a phalanx of superhero guards at their sides. They would go back, face their non-existent demons, and do their damn jobs. 

They would then do what any other trained agent would do, namely go back home, avoid any mention of the situation until they were ready to deal with it, and beat the shit out of both punching bags and anyone dumb enough to offer to spar with them in the near future.

He ate because he was being watched, but he honestly could not say what it tasted like or what the concoction was even supposed to be. He spent the meal watching Natasha push the food around on her plate until called on it by a blessedly blunt Thor, who worried he had mixed the spices wrong. Given that the spices in question were salt, pepper, and a fair amount of hot sauce as these things kept in the cupboards for indeterminate amounts of time, Clint was torn between the discovery that Thor had learned to use his earnest attitude for evil, and being proud of him for doing so. It had the result of getting both of them to finish the majority of what they were given though, so there was that. It still sat like lead in his stomach by the time he was done, and he really hoped that was the worst of it.

Steve had instituted a "no shop talk a the dinner table" rule quite some time ago - irregardless of whether the meal was actually at a table or spread out across a kitchen island, living room, or medical ward - so they waited for the dishes to be cleared and put in to soak before they discussed both what had happened and what they might expect to find the following morning. It was as much a test of his memory of the events as it was a test of his reactions to that memory and he wished he said he passed with flying colors but figured he ended up with a solid B for effort. He tried being vague, but he was known for his eye for detail, and ended up over-describing certain aspects solely to avoid others he did not wish to discuss.

Agent Sitwell came at what should have been the end but ended up being halfway through the review. He had a medic take blood samples from both Clint and Natasha and leave to process them immediately, the results determining their role in the next day's adventures as much as his opinion of the tale they told. He listened impassively while Natasha repeated her story of being overpowered, and how she came to be strapped to the table with Clint cuffed to the bar on the wall near the floor. He still listened, without a word, while Clint reiterated how he ended up there. 

It was only when there was a brief pause while Clint tried to circumvent a particularly unpleasant occurrence that Sitwell asked, "Doctor Banner, I am assuming you have seen to their wounds? Did you check Agent Barton's ankles? He has a history of neglecting to mention thing such as sprains until after a four mile trek through a jungle."

He kind of hated Jasper for knowing him so well. To be fair, the incident in reference also involved him practically carrying a certain handler as well as the item they had been sent to retrieve. Bruce gave him an "ah-ha!" look as though that was what he had been hiding, and Clint dutifully unlaced the boots he had chosen because getting caught at this was far better than getting caught at something else. 

He removed his sock to reveal a purpling bruise that stretched from his instep to his Achilles, and earned a sympathetic wince for his efforts. He also earned a snap of fingers from Stark with a pointed look towards his remaining foot, so he removed that sock as well, the welt across the top still tender but severely reduced in swelling.

Stark whistled low and demanded, "What the hell did they do to you, Barton?" but it was Steve with his quiet, contemplative look that worried him more. If his foot had been exposed to allow such damage, the question had to be asked as to what else was exposed and what additional damage had been caused, not to mention the whole if he hid this he probably hid a hell of a lot more.

Clint just pasted on his most impassive and unimpressed face and calmly replied, "Classified."

Jasper snorted, but also pointed out, "I have higher clearance than you, Barton."

This time, he let the tiniest amount of emotion show through when he said, "Section twenty-three, subsection eight of my agreement to work with SHIELD."

That caused more than a single raised eyebrow, and a heavy swallow from Sitwell, but the man wisely backed down. Clint knew that Tony would hack his file when he "went to bed" for the night, but couldn't care less about what he would find. The clause in question simply stated that Clint reserved the right to make a call to save another from great harm or possible death, even if it explicitly went against protocol and even if it was at the cost of his own person. That one had been a pain in the ass to get in there, and he had cited it very few times in his career. Two of those times had been with regards to the woman currently glowering at him, and he was fairly certain it would happen again before either of them succumbed to retirement or worse.

Jasper looked over to her, barely responding to the look of loathing she offered, and inquired, "Agent Romanov, are you willing to explain what happened?"

She tilted her head at him in a way that had caused lesser men to flee. "We were interrogated. Their methods were ineffective."

Sitwell took that as his due but, to be fair, he had worked with many agents in many situations and knew when to press and when to demand psych evals and he rarely had done either with either one of them. He trusted them to tell him what was important and relevant to the mission at hand, and to deal with the excess on their own terms. If he suspected what they hid would be detrimental to said mission at hand, he would pull them. If he suspected the detriment was to no one save for themselves, he usually let them go and possibly crash and burn and take whatever caused their current demons along for the ride.

They finished up their mock debriefing, not even bothering with the obfuscation any longer and now simply skipped over the parts they decided not to mention. Jasper's phone rang and the tech confirmed that there were no lingering chemicals in either agent, though Clint's white blood cell count was slightly elevated, so a round of antibiotics was recommended in case any of his multiple scrapes had become infected. It usually took far more than some scraped wrists for his body to respond that way, and he suspected Jasper knew that as well, but the drugs would take care of both the seen and the unseen and it was not worth the fight when the prescription was already to be had.

He dutifully took them, and then dutifully took the pain pills Bruce pointed out where still in his pocket, and then he dutifully excused himself to his room to lock the door and pass out. He only woke twice, and only stopped himself from shouting in response to a dream he rather did not wish to have once and, in the morning, he felt almost rested, if still unsettled.

He opened his door to find a bow case, quiver, uniform, and comm, as well as an open bathroom. He took advantage of them all save for the brace for his hand, washed and dressed and dragged his gear with him to shared space, not surprised in the least to find Banner half-asleep on the couch with hair still damp from his own shower, Rogers in the kitchen cooking up breakfast, and Sitwell long gone.

Thor gave home a once over, nodded, and declared that he looked much better. He also pounded him on the back in warrior pride or some such thing and Clint tried both not to topple over and to not visibly wince at the action. He failed at one, but stayed on his feet and called it a draw and moved to choose a tea that Bruce might like and to brew the sadness that passed as coffee for everyone else.

Natasha joined them shortly, and Thor offered to go wake up Stark in hopes they might actually leave at a reasonable time. Clint ate out of a need for fuel for what he considered a mission and because his stomach actually rumbled slightly in hunger instead of disgust. Nat did the same and Clint resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the way Steve beamed at their efforts.

The effort was nearly wasted when he bent down to pick up his bow case though. The light from the kitchen was off save for the bulb above the sink, the living room mostly in shadows as they prepared to leave. The linoleum had the faintest glint from the remaining light in the hallway, and the chrome of the stool-like chair against the counter reflected the same. Stark was standing just a little too close with his expensive jeans and custom sneakers, and there was a clinking crash from the kitchen where Steve was putting the last of the dishes away, followed by a self-depreciating, "I guess I just don't know my own strength."

His stomach surged and he fought to keep his breakfast down, his feet rooted to the floor but his mind miles away in a dark lit room, serum-enhanced assholes looming over him, taunting and teasing and physically manipulating him like he was nothing more than a rag doll, laughing as they plotted and planned what they were going to do next, bruising skin and maybe bone as they bragged about their abilities and just how strong they were, just what they could do with that strength.

He breathed out heavily through his nose, and then in again, smelling the ridiculous aftershave Stark preferred, the lingering scent of oatmeal and burnt coffee. Steve flipped the overhead light back on to deal with the broken glass and the entire area seemed to surge back to life. It grounded him, centered him, reminded him of where he was and who he was with. He righted himself and shouldered his equipment and hoped no one had caught his momentary lapse.

Tony looked at him though, stared at him with thinly veiled and knowing concern. "You okay?" he asked in a voice quiet enough even Steve probably couldn't hear him.

Clint nodded, shifted his quiver into place. "I just had a moment, you know," he shrugged. He left it vague, let Tony figure out for himself if he meant a memory or a muscle twinge. 

The man was a genius, however, so it really shouldn't have come as any surprise when he paused, fingertips resting just barely atop the protective tabs Clint wore on his fingers, and said in a rare serious tone, "Trust me, I know."

Clint shook it off instead of leaning into the understanding the way he was tempted to and moved to join the others, who were all thankfully in the dark about his little trip down memory lane. Stark stayed close though, bumping into him and jostling him when he picked up his own gear, keeping some part of him that was covered in his flashy, iridescent shirt within Clint's line of vision at all times. If the man wasn't usually such a selfish bastard, Clint would almost take it as a silent form of support. He didn't want to dwell on it though, nor did he want to risk dropping his guard enough for Stark to figure out all the things that really needed to stay hidden.

They rode in relative silence on the way there, no one speaking and the radio playing soft nothings to fill up the empty space left behind. With the mansion effectively in SHIELD's custody, there was no need to park in the woods and trek the rest of the way in, the main gates open and wide and watched over by armed guards loyal to their own allegiance. Sitwell greeted them and gave them a brief walk through, explaining what they had found so far, which really wasn't a whole hell of a lot.

"I wouldn't have thought they'd have time to clear that much out," Banner mused. "From what Natasha and Clint reported, there were multiple labs and they appeared to be manufacturing the serum here as well, or at least a form of it. I can understand why they wouldn't want to cut and run and start from scratch again, but..." If anyone knew about leaving everything behind at a moment's notice, it would be Bruce. He was fidgeting slightly, the way he always did when the SHIELD teams didn't give him quite enough space, but he did have a point. 

Natasha beat him to the obvious question, body and mannerisms still tense from the all too recent history, standing an extra few inches behind and to the side of the others. "They managed to evacuate the sub-basements as well? I get locking them down, but a full evac is impressive, not to mention beyond what we know of their organizational skills."

Sitwell paused mid-step, body frozen for a half a second before he slumped in defeat. "There are sub-basements as well?" he asked in a pained voice.

"That was in my report," Clint defended himself. The actual paperwork had not yet been filed, or even written, but he knew he had described the areas in full, or at least what he had seen of them. He may have been a bit punch drunk, but he knew what was important enough to make it into the reports, even as he knew what he could avoid, and pesky things like the damn labs where the drugs were made was definitely on the turn-in list.

Sitwell shook his head, but didn't seem upset at Barton as much as himself. "You said lower levels, we translated that to level - as in singular," he explained. "There was no evidence of anything beyond the first basement, no access point or obvious traffic areas. We - I - assumed you had misspoke due to the fact you were barely conscious." He straightened himself and apologized, "I am sorry for underestimating you and promise to try not to do so again."

Clint blinked. He had worked with Jasper enough that his straightforward manner shouldn't surprise him, and yet it did. The guy made a mistake, and he owned up to it. It was also a prime example of both why more than one team usually searched a given area and why someone from the original incident should always be on scene or wired in if available. Things could be missed. Sometimes, you could use these things to your advantage, such as to cover up wounds or sneak intel or get first dibs on something. Sometimes, the things meant a scratched mission as the lack of data meant a lack of a plan of attack.

"This way," was all he said in response, and took point to both his team and Sitwell's lackeys. He wound through three hallways to a back stairwell, then down a flight to the obvious basement. Another hallway, a no longer locked room, and false library later, and he stood in front of a bookcase, looking for the trigger to the door he knew lay behind it.

A glance at Natasha earned him a shrug and a self depreciating, "Don't look at me, I was unconscious at this point."

He raised his eyebrows at that. She was not known for admitting a weakness, and definitely was not known for announcing she had one. It was possible she was trying to make him feel better, but he doubted it. Instead, he said, "I figured you were faking like usual."

"Four trained soldiers souped up on the serum versus me? I'm good, but not that good," she replied, earning more than a single wince from her companions. 

Bruce took the moment to raise his hand and offer, "What's the chance the door is rigged with an alarm of some sort? Or a defense system?"

Stark beat him to an answer. "About the same as our super soldier wannabe friends waiting to attack as soon as it's opened," he shrugged. He managed to stop Thor from stepping up and simply smashing the thing to pieces with, "But, hey, I brought this cool case that forms this awesome armor and has these things called sensors that can scan both the system and maybe the area behind it. It's okay, I know you want your own, but this one's mine."

Bruce snorted and Steve rolled his eyes, but Clint watched as Tony set the case on the floor and activated the sequence for the suit. He had seen it many times before of course, but it never got old - a block of metal unraveling to reveal gears and plating that shifted and shaped themselves to form a custom, working, fully armed suit of armor. He'd say he was envious, but he had seen Tony at the end of the battle, the suit more of a hindrance than a benefit, metal dented and dragging, accentuating injuries and possibly causing more. The benefits were wonderful, and possibly almost equal to the cost. It worked for Stark though, and no one was dumb enough to turn down his assistance when the time came.

The faceplate lowered and the eerie eyes lit up and it took him all of about a minute to announce, "Got the lock. I'm finding nothing on the other side, which either means it's clear or there's something blocking the signal. Go in hot?"

"Go in prepared," Steve corrected, which everyone took to have slightly different meanings. He hefted his shield, Thor hefted his hammer, Natasha readied her gauntlets, and Clint readied his bow. Bruce loosened the button at his collar, which made several of Sitwell's men nervous, but they all snapped to positions as soon as the senior agent flipped the safety off his weapon.

Of course, it was all for naught when the door swung open to reveal absolutely nothing save for a simple stairwell leading downwards and an elevator with no visible buttons at its side. "Downward we go," Tony shrugged, but Clint stopped him.

"You'll destroy any element of surprise clanking around in that thing. Let us go first, and you bring up the rear." It was an order phrased as a suggestion, and he could almost picture the faces Tony was making at him behind the mask, but his teammate let it go, for now.

Clint took point and led the way down the stairs. He let some of Sitwell's men fan off at the first sub-level, Cap and Bruce with them. The rest followed him to the second level, and split up easily when suggested. He let them have their fun with the labs; he wanted both the exam rooms and the surveillance room if possible. Neither were mentioned as being found yet, and if he could get there before the others, it would prevent a hell of a lot of uncomfortable conversations for them all.

Nat was fully on board with this plan, for as much as they had not discussed it. The first room held a man strapped to a bed the way she had been, unblinking and unmoving. He let the team with far more medical training take care of that, and moved on to the next one. He froze at what he found.

It was most definitely the room they had escaped from barely a day before, and most definitely had yet to be cleaned. The gurney was still smeared with blood, and a myriad of dark stains littered the floor. The empty syringes of what had been given to Nat lay in a neat row atop a tray, full vials of a multitude of different colors beside them. The floor held less delicate instruments, including the piece of pipe and the electrical cord that had served as a whip, splayed out where they had been tossed and forgotten.

"You were held here," Thor announced, and it was not a question. The malice in his tone was palpable, and Clint was tempted to ask him to light up the place, destroy it where it stood, save for the fact the building as a whole was still crawling with agents and he didn't know if his electricity-friendly ally had that much control.

Natasha busied herself with methodically wrapping the drugs and their various delivery systems, knowing the benefit of their analysis. Clint busied himself with trying to find a way to hide the worst of the evidence. 

Any productivity was soon halted by a voice, vaguely familiar, which laughed, "Oh, look, they've returned! Couldn't get enough of us? Had to come crawling back for more?"

"They brought a friend!" another one joined in.

It was the third one who sounded like he might actually have a clue, his voice far quieter when he added, "A really big friend."

The others didn't seem too concerned, hyped up on their drug and borrowed strength and likely yet to find someone they couldn't beat down. "Keep the big guy for the Doc," the first one ordered. "He definitely qualifies as a viable specimen."

"And the girl?" the second one asked. Clint was willing to bet actual cash money on his partner raring for a fight from those words alone. He was torn between a smirk at the sound of her gauntlets powering up proving him right, and vomiting up his breakfast as his memory chose that moment to replay some of the less nice aspects of their prior visit.

The man shrugged. "In one piece if you can; save the important bits to play with if you can't."

Even though he knew to expect it, Clint was still surprised when the mouthpiece for the bunch seized in place with barely controlled electricity. He honestly couldn't say if it was from Natasha or Thor though, and didn't really have that much time to think about it anyway as the other two chose that moment to attack. 

The fight was decidedly one-sided, with Thor using his hammer against the man dumb enough to make a move against him, crumpled bulk crashing through the wall on the far side with ease. The second man had lunged towards Natasha, who ducked, dodged, and put him in a high voltage chokehold. He tossed her back towards the gurney, only to join his cohort when Thor's hammer connected with him as well.

He would have said that was the end of it but the first man, the loudmouth, had recovered enough to stagger towards Clint, the distance far too short to make use of his bow, but close enough to land a hit against a skull as hard as concrete. He crouched into a defensive position, ready for the counterattack, but it never came. Thor took a page from his own book and hit the man as well, the force of his fist enough to knock even the serum-enhanced body unconscious.

"Are you uninjured?" Thor inquired, not even out of breath.

Clint shook out his hand, knowing his knuckles would be pretty shades of black by lunchtime, but promised him, "I'm fine. Tash?"

Natasha stood from where she had crouched and tossed an errant curl over her shoulder. She eyed the unconscious men with a wariness Clint more than understood, but nodded her agreement. Those eyes then drifted to the gurney in a rather calculating manner. "Thor," she asked with a tranquility Clint envied, though also had learned to fear. "How do you feel about a unfortunate electrical accident?"

As any such accident would be credited to their hammer-wielding friend and they all knew it, it was quite the favor to ask. Thor, however, barely paused before he agreed, "It would be quite unfortunate indeed; where do you need it?"

Which was how the monitoring equipment next to the gurney accidentally overloaded, which was how the gurney itself sparked and caught fire, which was how the fire extinguisher was needed, which was how, unfortunately, the room no longer held the evidence it once did. The foam from the extinguisher was enough to put out the smoldering flames but contaminated the area, making any samples taken from the concrete or the gurney itself worthless.

The important samples though, the ones of the serum and the drugs already administered, were safe and sound and unadulterated, ready to hand over to the panicked agents that swarmed the room at the report of fire. The agents accepted the story at face value, the evidence matching the tale, and handled clean up of both the area and the men who had yet to revive. They hadn't been Coulson-trained, and had yet to learn to be suspicious of certain happenstances around certain senior members of SHIELD.

Clint decided he would consider the outing a success. He probably wouldn't actually sleep any better anytime soon, but the worst of it was over and accounted for, or so he thought until Stark cornered him on the way up the stairs and dragged him to an unoccupied hallway, free from view of anyone else. Clint made all the required inappropriate comments and innuendos, but choked in silence when Tony announced, without preamble, "There was a video feed of the room."

Somehow, he knew Tony did not just mean that their most recent misadventures in pyromania had made the cut, but that the entire ordeal from the moment Nat and he had been brought down was available in brilliant technicolor for all to see.

"I scrubbed the feed and pulled the files," Tony said as if it were nothing, as if he didn't just break several major laws and regulations. "The charge that started the fire caused an odd sort of feedback loop and anything associated with that room and it's recordings for the past seven days were lost. I believe you'd call that 'unfortunate,' right?"

Convenient was a much more apt word, but Clint was still stuck at nodding numbly, and wondering just how much Stark saw, just how much he knew of everything that had transpired. "I..." he started, but had no idea where he was going with it and let the word trail off and hang in the air between them.

"Will take every damn pain pill and antibiotic offered because I know better than to ask you to actually go to a doctor," Stark finished for him. He was still wearing the suit, mask up, and looked like he wanted to run his hands through his hair had it been remotely possible. His eyes were haunted, though Clint could not tell if it was due to what he had seen or if he was dealing with his own flashbacks and PTSD from past events. 

"Look," Tony said, breaking the silence that followed. He looked around nervously, as though afraid either a SHIELD agent or serum-enhanced goon would attack at any moment. "I didn't watch, okay? I saw Romanov stripped naked and tied to a bed and you having the shit beat out of you before they even chained you to a fucking wall. I never need to see her that still ever again, and I never need to see you bleed that much. You can play Macho Agent Man or whatever you want, but you heal, okay? You tell us, tell me, if you are ever hurt, ever beat so badly that you can't function. You don't drag your ass back the next day to do it all over again."

Clint let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding at the revelation that no, Tony did not know the full score on this thing. He then had to pause before he breathed in again when he realized that, even with the little he did know, he had gone into full overprotective mode. It was an odd feeling, someone exhibiting actual concern versus dismay at the lack of battle-readiness, someone willing to keep secrets versus demanding a full and unadulterated report with physical evidence to back it up. 

He schooled his face behind a well-practiced mask, knowing he was only proving Tony's latest monicker for him correct, and said, truthfully even, "I wasn't lying when I said I've had a lot worse than that."

He was going to add that it was all part of the job, really, but was interrupted with, "And I'm not lying when I say I can get you a doctor, a full medical review, without your cronies at SHIELD ever having to know a thing even though I know you'd never take me up on the offer." Tony looked at him in a way riddled with suspicion but with no actual proof and it made Clint reevaluate just how in the dark he might be. "You obviously don't want Medical to get to either one of you. You let Bruce have a look-see so, bonus, but he's more likely to let you back in the field than Anderson or Josphine, secretly broken ribs or no. You've got a vengeance thing going on, a vendetta or whatever the hell it is that made you torch the room, I get and support that. But don't let that get in the way of actually taking care of yourself."

Stark didn't wait for an answer, probably knew he wouldn't get one to his liking anyway. He said his piece, held Clint's gaze for about a second, and then stormed off down the hallway, muttering about how he better find some of those goons of his own because he really had some pent up anger to work through. No one stopped him, no one tried, and most probably suspected he was still in a tizzy about his friends being caught and/or his teammates getting into a fight without him.

Natasha found him a scant few minutes later while he was still leaned up against the wall, head swimming with the recent revelation as much as with pure and simple exhaustion. He could feel every bruise, every reopened wound tacky with sweat and drying blood, and was thankful once again for the way the dark material of his uniform hid the worst of it from view. He wouldn't fool her, he never did, but at least no random agent was calling Medical on his ass, so there was at least that. "What's wrong?" she asked with her usual demand, ignoring formalities and any chance he might have to brush her off. Not that he would. Not now. Not so soon after everything that had happened.

He held out the drive Tony had forced upon him and replied, "Stark found the video feed." Her hand froze where it had begun to close around the offering. "He didn't watch it though, not all of it," he clarified, already answering what he guessed would be her next question.

She took the drive and secreted away quickly enough that even he couldn't say where it went. "Of course he didn't," she said calmly, but joined him supporting the wall. To anyone passing by, it would be nothing more than two agents commiserating after a long and semi-successful mission, postures forcibly relaxed, expressions scaring all but the most stout-hearted away.

He turned to look at her, found her face shadowed by the curtain of her hair. "What do we do?" he asked. He didn't want to come clean, didn't want to deal with the questions and counseling and whatever else Hill came up with after lecturing him about the need for full disclosure and chiding him for trying to provide less than adequate data.

She tilted her head slightly, face set as stone, and replied, "Whatever you feel the need to do."

He shook his head. "This isn't about me..." he protested.

She smiled, sad and honest for a fleeting moment. "The important parts are," she promised. She straightened, the very image of the legendary Black Widow once more, no hint of her sorrow or other pesky emotions showing through. "I know what happened, you know what happened, SHIELD has a copy of the official report. Anything beyond that is your choice, Barton. Just realize that choice has consequences, even if you choose not to decide."

"Yeah, because that doesn't sound ominous at all," he teased, but his heart really and truly wasn't in it. He gave up the pretense and asked, in all seriousness, "How are you?"

She shrugged, but it was far from fluid or graceful. The harsh light from the hallway seemed to highlight the bruises along her neck, the swelling of her lip. "As far as interrogations go, their ways were less than effective," she told him, a near parroting of her previous report.

It wasn't what he wanted, and they both knew it. He did everything save for reach out and tilt her chin to make her meet his gaze, and said, "You know that's not what I mean."

Her body shifted, a subtle change that let him see as much of the real her as she would allow while they were still technically in the field. "They didn't do anything that hadn't been done before, really. The paralysis was a bit over the top but..." She shrugged again, this time letting him see a hint of just how tired she really was, letting him see the lines and shadows she had held at bay by pure force of will. "I'll heal."

"You always do," he agreed. He wasn't sure if he envied her or not at this point, and settled for deciding to keep watch, stay closer for the immediate future, just in case that legendary healing of hers decided to take a plane to Tulsa. 

It was because he watched that he saw her take that extra step back when Steve and Bruce joined them. Saw her choose the front passenger seat of the transport and tuck herself away from any incidental touch when Rogers still insisted on handling any and all doors along their way back home to the Tower. Saw her choose the stool by the kitchen counter for that night's meal instead of pulling up a chair and squeezing in when she came down late, skin blushed red from its recent scrubbing and damp hair still scented like the shampoo he once hit six stores in Singapore to find for her.

Bruce offered her tea, and Tony offered her vodka, and she took both in equal measure, but both were set down before her, offerer already stepping back before she reached for the cup. He wondered if her subtle avoidance was noticed by the others or if they were actively trying to give her her room as well. He also wondered if the avoidance stretched to include him, but her shoulder brushed his arm when she reached around to put her dishes away, her body barely tensing from the contact before continuing on as though nothing happened.

She accepted him, but only just. He knew better than to push the subject or push her buttons, just as he knew that she probably reasoned she was allowing it for his benefit and recovery more so than her own. 

They met with Fury the next day, where he advised them that they were both on stand down until further notice. He didn't even try to pretend it was to give them a chance to heal from their injuries, minor as they were. They were to deal with any inner demons they may or may not have while the techs and Stark and Banner analyzed the serum and other drugs found at the mansion. He made it absolutely no secret that he would have kept them both back at the safe house until properly cleared for duty, but he also gave them the Fury version of praise, which was to begrudgingly admit their presence proved useful.

Clint snorted at that, especially since it was now common knowledge no one would have found anything useful without access to the labs of the sub-basement. Fury even allowed it, and then pointedly mentioned the written reports not yet filed, and hinted that the post-mission counselors were available to senior agents as well as the newbies who hadn't yet learned to avoid them.

He went back to the Tower and squirreled himself away in his room, a nest of blankets heaped upon his bed and a stockpile of junk food on the small table to the side. His reports were laid out before him and he worked his way through them methodically just as he worked his way through the wrappers and cans. He looked up as he finished the last one and stretched, feeling each and every injury protest both the movement and the sitting in one place for so long. Somehow, it had become half past one in the morning, and his stomach growled for want of more than sugar.

He shuffled down to the shared kitchen as he knew he had nothing left in his own cupboards save for things that had probably gone stale a month ago, only slightly surprised to find it empty despite the hour. The tea kettle was still warm and the scent of Natasha's favorite still lingered in the air, so he figured he must have just missed her. He knew she wouldn't begrudge him a cup of the same, even if it wasn't usually his thing, so he grabbed a mug from one of the upper cupboards and filled it with something other than coffee for a change. 

A few slices of bread and some cold cuts later, and he had a rough approximation of a sandwich. He shoved about a quarter of it into his mouth and slouched over the plate to limit the range of the resulting crumbs. He had forgotten the mayo and mustard, and coughed at the dryness, so he reached for the mug to wash it down. Unfortunately, he didn't remember that he had also forgotten to close the cupboard until he raised his head and his forehead collided soundly with the wooden edge.

He fumbled with the cup in an attempt to rescue it, but managed to slosh a good half of its contents across the overpriced slate flooring in the process. He grabbed a towel to wipe up the resulting puddle and bent low to clean it before someone, probably him, slipped and made things worse.

Suddenly, he found himself on the floor, knees aching from the collision. It was no longer slate he saw, but cement. The warm tea his hand brushed up against was viscous and red. His head screamed in pain and his ribs wanted to buckle under the onslaught, but he stayed still, stayed quiet, raised only his eyes to look over to where Natasha lay, safe and sound for the time being, safe and sound as long as he didn't cause trouble, didn't fight back.

Only she wasn't there. Only the counter loomed, plate teetering along its edge. His hands clutched the now soaked towel and not his own destroyed shirt, and there were no taunting voices, only the slightly concerned tones of JARVIS asking, "Master Barton? Master Barton, are you unwell?"

He pushed himself up to his knees, and then to his feet, using the counter to steady himself even as his hand automatically pushed the plate back away from danger. "I'm fine, J," he eventually replied, though even he knew better than to trust his lie.

"You were unresponsive for seven minutes, eighteen seconds, though your vitals indicated you were conscious during this period. Do you require medical assistance?" the AI inquired.

He shook his head, the world tilting oddly with the motion. He closed the door that was still far too close to that head and insisted, "No, I'm fine," though he wasn't certain who he was trying to convince.

To prove his point, he shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth in a series of too big of bites, choking it down like the sawdust it tasted like, and downed the last of his tea in one go. He placed his dishes in the sink to deal with later, and stepped over the remaining dampness of the floor as he headed back to his room. Once there, he closed and locked that door and briefly questioned if there was a way to prevent a system override of the locks even as he briefly considered opening the bottle of the one thing he knew that was not stale in his quarters. He shrugged that off though, knew it was a downward slope as soon as he cracked the seal, and hobbled over to the bathroom instead.

He did not lose his dinner, but it was a near thing. Instead, he braced his hands on the edge of the sink, and eyed the new bruise already blooming that would only add to his collection at this point. There was a tiny trail of blood where the corner got him, and he swiped at it angrily, only succeeding in smearing it instead. 

He looked like shit with the shadows under his eyes and a face mottled with shades of blue and green and yellow. He was exhausted, but knew he wouldn't sleep any time soon, not without assistance in the form of one bottle or another. So he decided to do something foolish and stupid and childlike and take a hot shower to see if the steam and soap did anything to relax the built up tension radiating from every inch of his body.

He stripped and pried free the bandages and braces without actually looking at what lay beneath, never quite liking having to pick the soaked things from the bottom of the bath when they inevitably fell off anyway. He cranked up the water and stepped in without testing the heat, knowing JARVIS would prevent himself from doing any actual damage. He braced himself up against the wall, water pounding across his back, and simply stood there, willing his mind to empty, willing his thoughts to wash away with the lingering stickiness and blood.

It didn't actually work, but he didn't actually expect it to. So, sometime later, after the room had filled with steam so thick even he had trouble seeing through it, he turned the water off and scrubbed a towel over himself and resolutely avoided the mirror in any way, shape, or form. He grabbed his robe because he didn't think he could manage actual pajamas at that point and the thing was as soft as a blanket anyway. He stepped out into the chill of the rest of his living area, and was in no way surprised to find Natasha there.

She didn't say a word, only took him by the arm and led him to his bed where the blankets were all sorted flat and neat with his reports and tablet placed off to the side and definitely not how he left everything such a short time earlier. She laid across the bed and tugged him down with her, wrapped herself around him, and just held on. He held her back because she was real and she was safe and she was alive, and sometime between saying such things, nose buried in her hair, he drifted off to sleep.

He didn't wake up until the light from the window was blinding and bright and found her still at his side. She retreated slightly, only her calf still pressed against him where it was wrapped up in the blankets, and asked, "Better?"

He blinked and tried to do a self assessment and remain professional and such, but gave up with a shrug and an honest, "No."

Her fingertips traced his latest bruise before she used them to comb his hair back into some sort of semblance of order that only she knew. "Would bacon make it better?" she asked in the same light but guarded tone.

He smiled despite himself and admitted, "Probably not, but-"

"It couldn't hurt?" she finished for him.

She pushed herself up and away and he realized that she was fully dressed, couldn't remember if she had been the night before. "Tasha..." he started, but didn't know where to end.

"You have no food, I know. But we live in a multimillion dollar Tower that is fully stocked at the worst of times and we live with people who are dying to do anything to help," she told him. She fished through what he hoped was his clean clothing and handed him a pair of boxers, some track pants, and one of his favorite tees. After a moment, she paused and added the worn hoodie that had definitely seen better days but fit him just right in all the right places and pointedly added the brace for his hand if not his foot.

"Are you suggesting using our friends?" he asked as he wormed his way out of the robe. She had seen everything before, multiple times and for multiple reasons, but he could still feel her eyes on him, the way they zeroed in on the now uncovered and still healing lacerations and slowly shrinking welts, the way they flinched for him when he moved wrong and his ribs protested.

"I'm suggesting giving them something to do other than to hover," she corrected. To add action to words, or possibly more words to words, she then spoke upwards the way they all did when addressing JARVIS and requested, "Please ask Captain Rogers if he would object to making a pancake breakfast."

There was a pause, followed by the response of, "Captain Rogers wishes to inform you that it is now 11:35 in the morning."

"Then ask him to throw a few BLTs on as well," she said, just as smoothly.

Clint struggled into the hoodie, arms not wishing to cooperate quite as well as he wished and the contraption on his hand getting stuck in the sleeve. By the time he figured it out, and by the time Natasha was straightening the almost threadbare fabric, JARVIS replied, "He says to meet him downstairs and to tell Agent Barton that, next time, he is to do his own dishes."

She smiled as though the situation was handed to her satisfaction, so Clint felt like an ass for pointing out, "You know, bacon isn't actually going to make this better, right?"

"No," she agreed, considering. She already knew he wasn't going to turn down her request, especially as simple as it was, but still let him pretend to protest. "But either is ridding Stark of his Reyka and Glennfiddich, which was my other option. At least this way our stomachs will be full and we can pretend to function as normal."

Of course, there was no normal, not for them. Bruce met them down there and busied himself setting the table while Thor contemplated the pros and cons of each type of syrup currently available before deciding on them all. No one mentioned the extra color along his hairline, but he did catch Steve glancing between the wound and the hint of reddish brown on the edge of the cupboard door before Natasha nonchalantly reached up and scrubbed it clean, Steve neatly ducking out of the way to give her the room she so desired.

Bruce insisted on adding fruit and Thor insisted on adding powdered sugar and Tony only showed up with the promise of fresh coffee and sizzling pork. Bruce ate his pancakes crepe-style and Thor dusted his sandwich nearly white and no one mentioned the way Clint hid his nerves when Steve clanked the metal spatula against the cast iron pan or the way Nat happened to overflow her selection with syrup at the same time until Clint himself righted the bottle.

Steve was called away almost immediately after brunch as apparently someone who may or may not have been one of the augmented humans and may or may not have been a scientist that knew about the formula had accused the team of excessive force and destruction of property. Of course the property was related to recreating the serum, something SHIELD would like very much, and of course the person in question would have been more than willing but, alas, he simply no longer could.

It was bullshit and they all knew it. Not the excessive force part because they all pretty much silently admitted to that, but the destruction of anything save for the room Natasha and Clint had been kept in was not their fault because everyone wanted everything traced and analyzed on the off chance anything worse than a paralytic had been given to their team.

Steve left to go report in like a good team leader and soothe ruffled feathers or some such thing and Bruce pulled up a documentary about Buddhist monks and meditation, not even trying to go for subtle. One of the caves was a little too close to his own personal history for Tony's liking, so he left sooner rather than later. Clint took the opportunity to slip away as well, but headed for the range instead of his room.

He shot until his arms ached and then turned to the punching bags because he still really felt like doing something harm and the pain of his once again braceless hand reminded him to focus, amongst other things. His hoodie was discarded hours before Steve returned, but he kept his shirt on, not needing to provide that much of a show when he was fairly certain Thor had left him at least three bottles of water and Stark was watching him through his numerous cameras. He flipped one off for good measure and took a swig of water, paused for a moment before he went back to abusing his muscles, which is how he saw Steve storm in, still in his street clothes, knuckles that shade of healing bruise that meant his had hit something solid not long ago, and stalked over to a bag of his own.

"That good?" he guessed.

Steve swung out and the bag shook on its chain. "It was a set up, the man never wanted to help in the first place." Another swing, another shake. "He was hoping one of the two of you would show, didn't realize what team you were on." The chain creaked. "The things he said... The things he implied..." Yeah, the bag was toast, or about to be anyway.

Clint closed his eyes, stalling as his hands fiddled with his gear by rote, and then hoped that his slip wasn't caught. Steve kept pounding away though, even after it was clear the bag was a goner. "Well," he swallowed, and tried for glib. "With us he wouldn't have had to imply; we already know the full score."

Steve stopped at that, a bead of sweat on his brow that threatened to drip into his eyes. "And for that, I am so very sorry." He swiped at his face with the back of his hand, fingers new and interesting shades of blue since he hadn't bothered to tape them. "If we... If I... She wouldn't... I'm sorry, Clint. I'm so sorry."

He looked ready to do that clap his hand on your shoulder thing, and Clint wasn't sure he could take that, not now. So he stepped away, feigned a stretch that proved his damp shirt had adhered itself to his back, hoped the welts weren't visible through the thin fabric, because he didn't need Steve's guilt for that on top of everything else. "It's done," he forced himself to say. He fell back on Widow's words, hid behind the persona she fought so hard to create. "They tried to get us to break and their methods simply didn't work."

"Ineffective," Steve parroted, hinting that they had used that line one too many times.

"Something like that," Clint agreed, took the out whether he was being offered it or not, and edged towards the doorway.

"It's more than that," Steve insisted. Clint turned so he wouldn't have to see him, draped the towel he had just used over his shoulder even as he knew it wouldn't hide all of the sticky damage beneath. He couldn't look at him though, couldn't see the anguish written across his features, couldn't see the expression of emotion that he himself tried so hard to push down and crumble.

"It's not," he said as he walked away, numerous water bottles forgotten. What he didn't add, at least hopefully not aloud, was, "It can't be."

He went back to his room and bathed yet again, this time counting seconds to make sure he didn't stay that long even though the water offered a solace he wasn't finding anywhere else. He had pulled on a pair of sweats but hadn't bothered with a shirt yet when there was a knock in his door. His front wasn't as bad as his back, so he held a shirt in front of him for mock modesty's sake, figuring he could talk whoever it was into leaving, or give them enough attitude until they managed that revelation on their own.

It was Bruce though, someone he always had trouble giving the slip for some reason. He stood there and looked decidedly unimpressed with the greeting he was offered, and countered with, "Turn around, bright eyes, and let me treat the back you've been ignoring so Cap stops thinking your dying of dysentery or something."

Clint barked out a laugh despite himself, and stepped back to let him in. "A - I can't believe you just used Bonnie Tyler against me. B - I question your medical prowess if you think I can catch dysentery from some rusty metal."

Bruce offered him his usual quiet smile and said, "My love for the classics knows no bounds. Also, it got me in, didn't it?" He waved a small bag in front of him and added, "And no, not dysentery, but possibly some nasty bacterial infection, so you're going to let me clean 'em and drug you and then come docilely with me to where Steve and Thor are making more BLTs for you and attempting to make borscht for Natasha."

That brought him up short. "She hates borscht," he warned. He stopped the pretense of covering himself and straddled a chair instead, back out in offering to the medical treatment he was about to receive, whether he wanted it or not.

Bruce shrugged and set the bag to the side so that he could push up his sleeves. "It's the only thing Russian he knows other than Tchaikovsky," he said by way of explanation, which made Clint shake his head and wonder how much more he would know by the end of the night.

New bandages applied and a promise/threat that fresh ones would be procured for at least three days, he tugged on his shirt and dutifully downed the pills offered, Stark's earlier words echoing in his mind as much as Banner's raised eyebrow and the knowledge that he was one if the few people on earth willing to wait him out if need be. He followed his new overlord down to the kitchen where, sure enough, the smell of bacon mingled with the smell of beets.

Natasha arrived, took one look at the offerings, and simply said, "No." She made herself a salad instead, stole a piece of meat from Clint's plate to crumble on top, and walked right back to her room.

Thor looked crushed and Steve looked confused, but Clint turned to Bruce and said, "Told you."

He ate his sandwich and drank the milkshake Thor made him, questioning the calorie count until he remembered he hadn't eaten since their late breakfast and that his team was keeping close enough tabs on him to notice. By the time he reached the bottom of the glass, he questioned if the shake had been drugged, or if there was something more than antibiotics in the pills he had been given. He was dead on his feet and could barely keep his eyes open.

Bruce escorted him back to his room and settled him on his mattress, tucked a light blanket around him despite the precision temp of the room. "You know," Clint yawned, watching as a glass of water and another dose of something, this one actually in a prescription bottle, was placed on his bedside table. "It's usually bad form to drug someone senseless after a traumatic event."

"It's usually bad form to lie about the severity of your injuries to someone trying to keep you out of Medical," Bruce countered, which wasn't so much a low blow as an honest one. "You were given a mild muscle relaxant to ease the strain on your back and that hand you've been ignoring, the rest is all you."

"Shouldn't be that tired," he protested. He shifted the blanket up a little bit higher before he gave it up as a lost cause.

"Shouldn't be that stupid after having the crap beat out of you," Bruce rejoined. He pulled the offending fabric to just under his chin, where Clint himself preferred it.

"Your bedside manner sucks," he complained, yawning yet again. "See if I'm able to haul my ass up when we get a call to assemble. You're on your own, bro."

"You're on stand down anyway," Banner pointed out.

Clint scoffed. "Yeah, because that totally makes a difference."

Bruce had nothing to say to that, so he smiled and muttered some nicety that was probably a goodnight, and closed the door softly behind him. Clint waited exactly three seconds after hearing the click to say, "Hello, Tasha."

Natasha appeared from behind a corner, expression suspicious. "What did he give you?" she demanded.

Clint was self aware enough to know pretty much every common drug's reaction on his body at this point in his career, and so he was fairly confident in his correctness when he said, "Exactly what he said. Can push through it if I need to, but have to admit sleep sounds real good right about now." He meant sleep without nightmares, sleep without dreams of her tied to that damn gurney with him helpless to do anything about it, but figured she understood the subtext.

She nodded and kicked off the soft soled shoes she had been wearing before she settled herself on the bed, headboard at her back. "He shouldn't drug you," she said, still more than a little peeved and a lot more than a little protective.

"Nope," he agreed with another yawn.

"He saw the bruises," she said next, after a pause. She filled the silence with adjusting the covers she had just disrupted back to their previous state.

"Probably," he sighed. He knew which ones she meant, the ones the others either hadn't seen yet or hadn't pieced together the source of. The ones shaped like fingers. The ones carved into skin. The ones easily covered, if you paid attention to such things.

There was another pause, her hands stilling, and then, quieter, "Do you think he knows?"

He turned slightly, pillow squashing beneath the weight of his head. "I think he suspects. I think they all do. I also think they have it wrong," he answered, the drugs and the fact it was her making his tongue loose and blatant.

She nodded, and from this angle he could see it as well as feel it. "Get some sleep," she ordered, clearly settling in for the night. 

"Yes, ma'am," he dutifully replied, stopping short of giving her a salute because he did still value his life.

He woke in the morning to an indent in the bed and a lingering warmth on the pillow beside him, even if Natasha was nowhere to be found. He corrected that assessment when he heard a noise coming from his bathroom. He kicked off the covers but made his way over there slowly, giving her time to ready herself for human contact of the conscious sort. He pretended he hadn't heard her retch just like he pretended he didn't see her rinse her mouth with water from the tap. Instead, he let her slide past so he could enter and begin his morning ablutions and commented, "You show up in the same clothes as last night after leaving my room at odd hours and people are going to start to talk." 

She wandered back to the doorway and made a show of removing her long sleeve tee only to replace it with one of his Henleys. It have him a glimpse of the lingering marks on her wrists, the line of colors along her side, the ring of fading green around her neck. "They won't say a thing," she said, and he had to concede that she was right. She grabbed a brush he hadn't known he had and dragged it through her hair before she asked, "Are you feeling better today?" 

He considered that for a moment before admitting, "A little." The twinge between his shoulders was nearly nonexistent, the muscles of his back looser, even if he could still feel the actual healing wounds. His thumb still hurt like a bitch, but that's what he got for purposely dislocating it and then both fighting with it and spending far too long on the range without a brace. She handed him that brace now, and he fought the urge to roll his eyes at the predictability of the action.

"Food?" she suggested, a sign that he was not even to hint at knowing she had just emptied the contents of her stomach moments ago.

He didn't bother shaving, but did reach for clean clothing as he said, "They keep making that much bacon and not only will there be a pig shortage in the state of New York, but I'll be too fat to fit into my gear soon." He had been ready to comment about the artery clogging factor, but knew even the slightest mention of ill health was probably not a good thing at this point, for either one of them.

"There's always sausage," she said glibly, pulling on the shoes he hadn't noticed she had been going without,

He paused in the act of buttoning his jeans to raise his eyebrows at her. "You do know that most sausage is made with pig too, right?" he asked.

"Only the good stuff," she replied readily enough.

This time he did give in to the urge to roll his eyes, and caught the faintest hint of a smile for his efforts.

They reached the common kitchen to find that, yes, no one said a word about her choice in clothing or possible sleeping arrangements. Bruce was in charge of the meal this time around and it was something involving vegetables, quinoa, and a crap ton of spices; not the usual breakfast fare, but edible enough. Clint made a point of pouring coffee for both himself and Natasha despite Steve's attempt to do so, the look he gave him making the supposed team leader turn red and hint at just who managed to slip him the relaxant the night before. Bruce responded by letting everyone dish out their own servings into their own bowls as proof that everything was on the up and up. Natasha grabbed the crockery for the both of them, forgoing the ones already set to the side and rinsing fresh ones first.

"Sorry for last night," Bruce offered. He added a chili paste to the already spicy concoction in his bowl and stirred it in.

"No you're not," Clint replied, forgoing the extras.

Bruce took a bite and used the time it took for him to chew it to stall before he answered, "Not really. At least not if it worked and you actually feel better." He looked over the rims of his glasses as if to verify such a thing, and Clint spared a thought in remembrance of the far more mild and soft spoken rage machine of a doctor who he had first met so long ago, and wondered whether they had changed him, or simply let his true self free.

Clint didn't really have anything to say to the commentary or the scrutiny, not that he could as a call in from Fury interrupted anything else anyway. They were to assemble, just as Clint had predicted the night before. However, both he and Natasha were specifically excluded in the order, and not due to any narcotics that may or may not still be in their systems. She protested, Fury was unmoved. She protested more, Fury threatened dire consequences if he found her on the Quinjet or anywhere near the structure the others were to head to, dire enough that she actually looked like she was going to stand down.

The same threat applied to Clint, of course, with Hill herself to come over to babysit if they tried anything. They relented, but mainly because Tony stood just outside of Fury's view and silently promised a live video feed for anything and everything that happened. Steve pretended he hadn't heard or seen a thing, a remarkable coincidence for someone with his enhanced senses, which was as good as permission to do it as any.

The others left and Clint and Natasha stayed back and dealt with the dishes and set up the feed and pretended they didn't notice a cadre of agents milling about the base of the Tower or the way any easy to get to and reliable transport was locked down. Of course, Tony being Tony, there were backups that the team knew about and SHIELD did not - there were also probably backups that Tony knew about that the team didn't as well, but that was another matter all together - but the circumstances didn't seem quite dire enough to reveal those yet, so they were held in reserve should the shit hit the fan later.

The mission itself was to a compound of warehouses where the production of the serum was believed to occur. Considering they had found evidence of the production at the mansion, this seemed odd to Clint, but there was apparently enough evidence to warrant a team to investigate. Given that there was also evidence of those who had already been enhanced by the serum as well, the truncated Avengers team was sent instead of a standard SHIELD team.

As expected, it had been a trap. Over a dozen enhanced goons were on site, ready to challenge any interlopers. Not quite as expected was the fact that their interlopers included an alien god, a gigantic rage monster, a man in a nearly indestructible suit, and the original super soldier who was the only fully successful recipient of the full serum in known existence. 

Or maybe it was expected, at least partially, Clint amended when one of the goons actually spoke. Tony had the sound rigged as well as video, and so Clint and Natasha listened in as the guy went on about the glory of challenging "the original" and how good it was going to feel to take him down.

Thor and Tony responded by putting themselves between Cap and the goons, and Cap responded by tossing his shield and nearly decapitating about three of said goons. Hulk simply began to smash. Deciding Steve had things well in hand, and possibly due to the explicit order, Tony and Thor spread out a bit to both give him room and challenge a few idiots of their own.

One such idiot really took a liking to Tony. Stark had been instructed not to use lethal force unless absolutely necessary - something that applied to the team as a whole, though the Hulk was usually given a little more leeway than most. This meant that he did not fire when the guy tossed him into some metal scaffolding, but just rolled with it and tried to disable him in other ways.

He continued to roll with it even when pressed up against a wall, alarms going off from the pressure exerted upon the suit. Over those alarms, Clint heard a grunted, "With that mask on, you could be anyone. Are you the infamous Iron Man, or are you the pretty little slut dressed up to try to fight with the big boys?"

The voice made his blood run cold. His memory matched the voice to the image on the screen, a face he remembered looming and taunting as the blows rained down, a head thrown back in laughter as he was told there was nothing he could do about it, and the brief moment of being dumb enough to almost believe it.

The sound stopped abruptly, and he worried that he had spaced out for a moment as much as he worried that Tony's tech had been compromised. Instead, Stark's voice, loud and clear and only a little out of breath, said, "Secure line. Is it safe to assume there were more than three bad guys in the room with you that night?"

Clint licked his lips to respond, realizing that must have been all the further Tony had made it through the footage, but Natasha beat him to the punch. "There were five," she replied with a voice completely devoid of emotion. Of course, her fingernails were currently carving into his palm, but he ignored that for now.

"This idiot in red and who else?" Stark asked.

"Short blond hair in blue," Clint replied before he could question himself. "What are you thinking Tony?"

Stark, as expected, did not actually respond, the line must have switched again because there was a click and then the alarms were back, the goon still spouting some truly disgusting suggestions. "I feel like my life is threatened," Tony commented idly, and Clint suspected he knew where this was going.

"Then you're finally getting with the program," the goon replied. He shifted and there was a distinctive crashing noise, a crunching of metal that corresponded with another beep of warning. "Though I can't decide if I want to just kill you outright, or tear that armor off and have another go at you."

"Yeah, definite threat," Tony said, tone suddenly far deeper and far more serious. The whine of his suit powering up echoed through the connection, and then, louder still, he called, "Hey, Big Guy, I have a toy for you. Don't feel the need to go gentle on 'em."

The goon in question was blasted back away from Stark and into the waiting hands of the Hulk. Tony kept the camera trained on him just long enough to let his teammates know "not gentle" was an understatement of epic proportions before he made a beeline for a certain other goon, bypassing at least three in the process. Thor took care of those, and then Thor took care of the remnants of the one in the blue shirt before the entire team, Steve included, rounded on the remaining super-powered idiots.

Clint watched numbly as the men who had made his life and that of his partner a living hell - albeit for only a few hours - were, for lack of a better word, decimated. It seemed too easy, even though he could see the effort his teammates were exerting to finish the job. He knew it shouldn't be a big deal and that, in the long and the short of it, what he went through that night should be only a blip on his radar of suck over the past few years. And yet, it wasn't. And yet every time he closed his eyes he saw Natasha laying there unmoving, vulnerable in a way he had never seen her before. And yet he remembered his words, his pleas for them to leave her alone, his taunts so that they would pay attention to him instead. 

Maybe the incident was just too fresh. Maybe the incident was somehow more personal. Maybe he had grown too accustomed to his newly found massive backup and his expectations had been severely altered. Maybe this time things just really and truly sucked.

Part of him wished he had been the one to take the assholes down. Part of him wished he had at least been granted the satisfaction of seeing the take down a little more close and personal than a remote, clandestine video feed. Most of him still wished none of it had ever happened in the first place.

He forced open eyes he didn't remember shutting to look at Nat now, to see her sit there, outwardly calm and professional while her nails dug deeper and deeper into his skin, betraying her inner emotions in ways he would never call her on. She faced the screen and watched the cleanup and resulting investigation of the warehouse, and so he tried to do so as well. Nothing registered though, nothing stuck, and he would have to hack into the mission reports if he actually wanted to know what the hell any of his teammates had done. His mind was miles and nights away, filled with a sequence of images on repeat, the cycle beginning again and again and again while one tiny corner of his consciousness not currently hung up on living in the past reasoned that Fury was right and he had been in no condition to go back into the field, at least not for this particular mission.

When it was clear that the team was in no further danger and that the situation was under as much control as possible, Natasha and he slowly extricated themselves from each others' grasps. She disappeared down one of the many corridors and he did nothing to stop her. Instead, he blatantly stole a handful of nonperishables from the shared cupboards and headed up to his own rooms.

He locked the door and instituted the additional security protocols Stark had granted each of them upon assignment of their personal quarters and ordered, "JARVIS, no one in or out without my approval."

And JARVIS with his calmness and knowing simply asked, "Of course, Master Barton. Are there any exceptions to this decision?"

He thought of how pissed Tasha would be, and then he thought of how he needed time, even if it was only for a few hours, to sort through this on his own. With a heavy swallow, he replied, "No, none."

Of course it wasn't only a few hours and of course his teammates were less than understanding. Bruce had JARVIS relay messages while Steve physically wrote them out and tried to shove them under the door. Thor knocked, possibly hard enough to leave a dent, and promised to stand watch if needed. Tony pounded and threatened to hack in and override the protocols, but the fact that he didn't actually do so meant that he understood Clint needed some space, even if he didn't want to actually have said understanding.

Natasha was silent.

It was a surprise, and yet it wasn't. On the third day of wallowing in his self pity, he pulled up the various messages left and found she too had gone radio silent. No one had seen hide nor hair of her and she had somehow programmed JARVIS to simply relay that she was somewhere on the premises, but not to say exactly where. Dishes appeared and disappeared from the central kitchen on a regular basis, and Bruce's tea supply was seriously dwindling, but no one actually caught her roaming about, even though they actively tried.

He looked at the evidence versus what he knew of her and had a fair idea of where she would be the following day. Five in the morning rolled around and he released some but not all of the locks in a very predetermined manner and hit the vents and hidden access panels to skulk around with minimal interference.

He reached the gym to both find that his suspicions were proven true, and that someone else had either pieced the same evidence together, or had gotten incredibly lucky. She and Steve were going at it, sparring being the loosest definition of the battle he watched waged. She struck again and again and he blocked and dodged but made little to no offensive moves.

"Why won't you fight me?" she demanded, fingers darting outwards towards his throat.

He blocked the move with his own hand and swept her arm to the side. "I don't believe it's what you really want," Steve replied, and Clint winced in readiness for the retaliation. Rogers sounded winded, as if the fight was actually tiring him, and he wondered how long it had been going on before he happened across it.

"Are you," she began, foot lashing out towards his kneecap, glancing off as he sidestepped. 

"Going to tell me," she continued, spinning in a roundhouse and following through with an elbow that looked like it connected in a truly painful manner. 

"What I do or do not want?" she finished with a snap kick aimed towards his chest. He caught it and held her foot between his hands, her inner grace and balance and his restraint the only things keeping her from toppling backwards. 

"Do you dare?" she demanded, and there was an edge to her voice, an anger and frustration that she had kept under wraps for these past few days, hidden away from everyone and everything. It lurked at the very limits of her being now, truthful and painful in equal measures, and Clint could see it in her eyes as much as hear it in her voice.

When Steve spoke, he sounded as broken as she was, rough and brittle and willing her to understand everything they weren't saying, everything they couldn't say because years of training and suppression had wound it too tight, kept it pushed down too far to ever let it out into the bright light of day where someone could use it against them. "I would never," he promised. He lowered her foot, dropped it in a way that helped her adjust and compensate, before he repeated. "I swear, Natasha, I would never."

He stepped away and grabbed a towel, never fully turning his back on her, but never twisting that extra little bit to meet her glare either. He moved slowly, stiffly as he picked up his water bottle and headed for the door. The slightest tilt of his head acknowledged Clint's presence in the hallway, but he never said a word.

Natasha, for her part, had moved on to venting her frustrations on a punching bag of the non-living variety. She kicked and she hit and she punched all in a flurry of movement, just the tiniest bit more vocal that her usual silent routine. It felt like glass against his veins to see her like this, not broken but so very far from whole. It was a rare thing, and he knew she usually preferred her privacy in times like this, just as he knew he couldn't leave her alone.

He stepped forward and figured she would have heard his footsteps as he did nothing to hide them, right up until he called out a soft, "Nat?"

She spun on her the ball of her foot, arm raised and fist at the ready, momentum enough to carry the movement through to its undoubtedly painful conclusion. She stopped though, stayed the attack, and there was absolutely no recognition in her eyes for one painful second.

"You going to beat me up too?" he half joked, making absolutely no move to defend himself.

He watched as she crumpled, her body folding inwards like the cliched puppet with its strings cut. "No," she whispered, promised in a voice so very quiet and so very much the real Natalia and not the act she liked to put on for everyone else. "Not you. Never you," she swore.

He caught her before she knew she was falling, led her gently to the floor where she wrapped herself around him, all sweat and heat and anger. He held her and let himself be held and the rest of the world seemed to fade away as nothing, absolutely nothing, was as important as that moment and simply being there for each other. "We're here," he spoke into her matted hair, red strands tickling his lips. "We're here and we're safe and we're whole," he told her, willing the words to be as true as he wanted them to be.

He wasn't sure if she was rocking him or he was rocking her, but he felt the gentle sway of the push and the pull. "I'm so sorry," she said, words muffled by shoulders and fabric. She pulled back slightly, forced him to meet her gaze. "I was aware. The whole time... I could hear and think but couldn't move, couldn't help you, couldn't stop them..."

He had suspected as much, but had no evidence until now, hadn't wanted to ask and discover the truth. "Nat, it wasn't your fault," he told her, tried to pull her close again.

She shook her head though, adamant as she said, "I know what you did for me, what you did so they wouldn't... I know, Clint. Even if no one else does, I do." 

She sunk into him then, clinging and clung to and probably as pissed at him as she was upset upon his behalf. She didn't cry, and he was so very tempted to do so but couldn't do that to her, couldn't risk her misinterpreting the action, though he highly doubted she actually would.

Later, after his legs went numb and prickly and he could feel her shiver against the drying sweat, they helped each other stumble back to her room, the hallways and corridors oddly empty of any random interlopers. Behind the carefully locked doors, he slid to the floor in front of her couch, used it as a cushioned backrest while she dug around and set up her rarely used television.

They sat side by side, didn't say a word as the scene on the screen unfolded. Her shoulder brushed up against his arm, and her knee against his thigh as she huddled close, as the men on the screen taunted and teased and threatened, as they smeared Clint's blood across her naked skin and pondered the benefits of another test subject against instant gratification. She reached down and picked up his hand when a voice just barely offscreen, gruff from misuse and abuse, sounded to say, "You don't want her. Much more fun when they fight back, isn't it?" There was a pause and he remembered the tang of metal when he spit out blood. "Take me instead."

She didn't mention how it sounded more like a plea than a dare and he didn't mention how the supposedly unconscious woman on the screen squeezed her eyes that much tighter against something moist and reflective in the rough light of the room. Instead, she threw the remote through the screen, flecks of glass and sparks scattering around them both as she wrapped her arms around him and held on.

It wasn't perfect and it wasn't over, but it was as near to it as they were going to get any time soon, if at all. Knowing this, he pulled her closer still, bruises and welts and aching tendons all clambering for attention that he refused to give. He had far more important things to worry about now and, somehow, that granted him a peace he never knew he needed. He closed his eyes and made a silent promise, both to himself and to the woman in his arms, to use every method at his disposal to keep it that way.

 

End.


End file.
